


Untrue Colors

by MizJoely



Series: Sherlolly AU Prompts [20]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sherlolly - Freeform, Soulmates AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-09 22:03:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5557220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MizJoely/pseuds/MizJoely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>sweet-sweet-escape on tumblr said: Can I give you a prompt? I just saw the link in your series and the list of prompts!! I didn't know you were taking prompts, super, happy, double excited!! This is the one I pick: au where you have a stripe of your soulmates haircolor on your wrist and if they dye their hair your stripe changes colors au. I'm prompting this one because I love soul mate au's but also cause it sounds really awful and I think if anyone at all in the world can make it great it would only be you! Hehehe</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untrue Colors

**Author's Note:**

> Not so sure about 'great' but I think it's not so bad. Enjoy!

First it was a pale golden blond. That lasted until Molly was six months old, according to her mother and of course the photo she’d taken when Molly was first born. It gradually faded to a dark auburn, and then a glossy dark brown that lasted until she was about twelve. She came home from school crying because right in the middle of maths it turned bright, unnatural red, and she was convinced her soulmate had been in a fire or something equally horrible. It had taken Maggie Hooper a good hour to calm her daughter down and explain to her that the soulstrip changed with artificial coloring as well as any natural changes. Such as going from blond to auburn to brown, as her soulmate had done during her childhood. “Remember, luv, your hair was quite red when you were born and now it’s this lovely shade of cinnamon. But if you ever decide to color it your soulmate will know. At least you know he’s not afraid of making a statement with his hair!”

By the time she was eighteen, Molly was quite used to the radical color changes, and entertained herself by making up stories to match each new color as it appeared. Her favorite was when her soulstrip had gone rainbow colored; blues, greens, even faint flecks of amber and brown. She fancied her soulmate had his hair done up in a Mohawk or some equally outlandish hairstyle.

When she was twenty and had yet to meet anyone whose photolog matched the one she and her mother had put together over the years, she grew annoyed; how difficult could it be to find the one person in the world who’d dyed his hair so frequently and in such a range of colors? Surely the blue-green-with-flecks-of-amber wasn’t one often seen! Why didn’t her soulmate put his photolog on the web like most people did, in hopes of having it recognized?

Between the ages of twenty and twenty-eight she noticed a pattern forming: a year or so with all sorts of outrageous color changes, followed by a gradual return to the original glossy brown for about six months or so, then back to the flamboyant dye jobs.

After that and until she turned thirty she saw the soulstrip change colors only once before reverting to the dark brown.

It was dark brown hair she saw when she walked into the morgue on the morning of her thirtieth birthday, hair on the head of man bent over and apparently examining a corpse still lying in its body bag. Probably her 11:30 autopsy, but she was unable to focus on work right at the moment. Especially when her soulstrip began itching like mad. She reached over to scratch it just as the stranger straightened up and reached for his own left wrist.

Without turning around, he said, “I suppose your hair is a sort of cinnamon-brown shade?”

His voice was a deep baritone that sent shivers up her spine, and when he turned to face her as she approached him, she thought she’d never seen a more beautiful man in her entire life.

He studied her as intently as she was studying him. “You’re the new pathologist,” he said, then corrected himself after a quick look at her ID badge. “Sorry, specialist registrar.”

“Yes, I’m Molly, Molly Hooper,” she said, her voice a bit shaky as she extended her left hand, hauling up her sleeve so he could see her soulstrip. “I quite like the brown, but my favorite was the…” She fell silent as she got a good look at his eyes. “Oh,” she said as she stared up at him. “That’s why you picked those colors. To match your eyes.”

His lips – a perfect Cupid’s bow, plump and very kissable – quirked up in a smile. “You liked that one, did you? It was the one time I decided I wanted to give my potential soulmate a clue as to my identity without resorting to the idiotic Lonely Hearts’ websites that have sprung up in recent years.”

“They’re not Lonely Hearts’ websites,” Molly objected. “They’re meant to help soulmates connect. What’s wrong with that?”

He shrugged. “Takes all the challenge out of it and frankly cheapens the concept of having a soulmate in the first place. The idea is that you’re destined to find this perfect match, isn’t it? That you don’t need government registries and electronic data manipulation to find the one you’re meant to be with for the rest of your life.”

She hadn’t thought of it that way, and although she wasn’t entirely sure she agreed with him, she couldn’t say she disagreed either. “What’s your name, or is that something I’m supposed to be destined to know as well?” she asked with a small grin.

He snorted. “If that were the case then we’d have each other’s names mystically tattooed onto our skins rather than hair color. The name’s Sherlock Holmes, and the address is 221B Baker Street.”

He turned to leave, his coat flaring out dramatically while Molly stared after him, trying to gather her scattered thoughts. “What address?” she called after him.

“The flat I’m thinking of taking,” he replied as he reached the doors, pausing to glance at her over his shoulder. “Meet me there when you shift is over and we can discuss our first date.”

“Coffee?” she suggested.

He nodded. “Perfect, we’ll make it our first date instead. Black, two sugars.”

Then he was gone, and Molly had only a few hours to daydream about her first date with her soulmate.

Whoever he turned out to be, she had a feeling he was about as far from ordinary as the many colors of his hair had been.


End file.
